62d-SL-2022_Turin, Museum of Oriental Art, Bodhisattva seated in vitarkamudra, inv. 451

Facilitated description: 

 

The Bodhisattva is a painted wooden sculpture from China.
The Bodhisattva for the Buddhist relic is an enlightened person. The Bodhisattva is represented sitting with crossed legs and open hands in the gesture of argumentation.
The Bodhisattva was created in 1500 and is kept at the Museum of Oriental Art in Turin (MAO). 
The La Venaria Reale Conservation and Restoration Centre restored the Bodhisattva in 2022 for an exhibition. 
Scientists at the Venaria Center have done scientific analysis to study the matieriali of which the Bodhisattva is made. 
The restorers carried out a cleaning (cleaning the surface of the sculpture from the dirt deposited over time and from the layers of old restorations). 
They eliminated the non-original painted parts and not executed according to the ancient technique.
They designed the intervention on colors in collaboration with the superintendence. 
Eventually they painted the Bodhisattva to protect it from the sun's rays and dust. 

 

 

 

 

Abstract of the intervention: 

 

The work was restored on the occasion of the exhibition Buddha10. Fragments, drifts and refractions of the Buddhist visual imagination (Museo d'Arte Orientale di Torino, 20 October 2022 – 3 September 2023). The sculpture was subjected to an in-depth diagnostic campaign in order to deepen the executive technique and the state of conservation of the sculptures. 

 

Restoration

The sculpture, paired with Bodhisattva No. 450, featured widespread discolorations - due to numerous renaming and restoration works -, adhesion defects, surface gaps and limited fractures. 
The intervention therefore consisted in a general safety in view of the exhibition. In particular, the following operations have been planned: surface cleaning from incoherent deposits, removal of overlaid pictorial materials aimed at the recovery of the only material considered original. In this phase, particular attention has been paid to maintaining any ancient reconstructions to reproduction of original materials and executive practices. The aesthetic restitution phase was designed in collaboration with the protection body, evaluating the possibility of intervening with plastering and pictorial integrations. Finally, a protective layer has been added with a UV filter.